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Tuesday, February 24, 2015

WHEN YOU'RE ALEXANDER
POOLE, EVERYONE'S YOUR TEACHER A skeevy stereo salesman, master of the
bait and switch. A flaky folk singer and his dog that reads Tolkien. A
drug dealer loan shark with a passion for trees. A ballsy townie chick
who turns you on to Springsteen. Your wiseass roommate whose favorite
pastime is smoking your dope. Your first college girlfriend who has sex
with you to confirm that she's gay. Even your one true love. Together
they point you to paradise - Poole's Paradise - but what will it cost to
get in?

John Vorhaus is known to one
and all as the man who brought Radar Hoverlander – con artist
extraordinaire – to life in the “sunshine noir” mystery novel, The
California Roll, and its acclaimed sequel, The Albuquerque Turkey.

John
is also well known as the author of The Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny
Even if You're Not, and its acclaimed sequel, The Little Book of SITCOM,
which continue to be definitive sources of information and inspiration
for writers from Santa Monica to Scandinavia.

An international
consultant in television and film script development, Vorhaus has worked
for television networks, film schools, production companies and film
funding bodies in 28 countries on four continents. He recently worked
in Bulgaria, recruiting and training writers for that country’s
adaptation of Married… with Children, and in Tel Aviv, consulting on the
Israeli version of The Golden Girls. He also travels regularly to
Nicaragua, where he co-created the social action drama Contracorriente
to provide positive role modeling for the poor, young and
disenfranchised of that embattled country.

And oh by the way, he has written more than three million words on poker, just in his spare time.

Vorhaus
is a graduate of Carnegie Mellon University and a member of the Writers
Guild of America. He has taught at such institutions as Northwestern
University, the American Film Institute and the Writers Program of the
UCLA Extension. He is the author of a dozen books, including Creativity
Rules! A Writer's Workbook, the novel Under the Gun, the Killer Poker
series and, with Annie Duke, the bestselling Decide to Play Great Poker.

I accepted this book based on the simple fact that I've read a couple
of other books by this author, and really enjoyed both. I've found him to be a
fun read, and I was happy to give his latest a try. The last two were
part of a series with a fun-to-read con artist as the main character.

This time around finds a college student by the name of Alexander Poole who, like so many others, is always happy to make an easy buck, never one to turn down a warm body, and not afraid to get his hands a little dirty.

Well, this time around I just had a hard time getting into the story. At one point I thought to myself that this book felt like driving down a country road and spotting a sign for a corn maze. You think, “What fun!” So you pull over and pay $2 and begin winding around in the maze. But then an hour later you’re still wandering around in a maze of corn, lost and uncertain why you stopped in the first place.

Then about ⅔ of the way into the book, I started to feel a shift and was able to get into it a little more. But it still never really grabbed me and fell sort of flat. Author Vorhaus still has his talent for colorful, bantering characters, and he's always quick with a clever turn of phrase.

“Oh, Dawk, the train of your stupidity glides upon the rails of my indifference…”

But having read his previous work and knowing what a fun ride he's capable of taking me on, I was just a bit disappointed.

My final word: The author is a fine writer of entertaining characters and unusual angles, but certain moments got a little preposterous, and this story felt as if it were written for a younger crowd. It almost had a YA feel to it.There is a niche group for it, like the How To Build a Girl crowd who absolutely loved that novel while I just couldn’t get into it. The reviews on this have been quite good, so this may very well be an issue with a book just not clicking with me. I still remain a Vorhaus fan!

Disclosure:I received a copy of this book to review from the author, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

This is the cookbook
for everyone who wants to eat a little healthier these days by
incorporating more real foods into your diet, whether you're a
true vegan, vegetarian, or meatlover.

Hollywood's go-to
vegan chef, mom, and founder of Los Angeles' most popular and
chic vegan restaurant Real Food Daily, Ann Gentry shares her secret
recipes in Real Food for Everyone. You don't have to be a vegan to enjoy Real Food for Everyone.
Moms, chefs, foodies, and families can all enjoy expanding their
cooking repertoire with this book filled with easy to prepare,
scrumptious, healthy recipes and tips for the real food pantry.

Whether you're a time-strapped cook or a seasoned pro in the kitchen, Real Food for Everyonedemystifies
vegetarian and vegan cooking by offering more than 100 deliciously
fresh and simple to prepare recipes, many of which are gluten free, and
all of which are satisfying and healthy dishes for everyone to enjoy. In
addition, the many useful pantry sections provide information on
cooking ingredients that might be unfamiliar. From breakfast favorites
such as Sesame-Shiitake Tofu Frittata to simple homemade soups such as
Black-Eyed Pea and Red Pepper Soup, adn from everyday favorites like
Lasagna Rolls to decadent desserts like Chocolate Silk Pie,
you'll find something satisfying and healthy to cook for
everyone.

This is an updated and paperback edition of Ann's book, Vegan Family Meals.

Paperback, 272 pagesPublished February 10th 2015 by Andrews McMeel PublishingISBN 1449466532 (ISBN13: 9781449466534)About the AuthorAnn Gentry is the creator,
founder, and operating owner of Real Food Daily, the only restaurant in
the Los Angeles area that serves a 100% vegan menu using zero animal
by-products and foods grown exclusively with organic farming methods.
She is the author of The Real Food Daily Cookbook. She lives in Los
Angeles with her family."

My Thoughts

I quit eating meat five years ago over ethical concerns, but I haven't been the best at it. What I mean by that is that while I am good at not eating meat (no beef, poultry or pork), I do eat fish and seafood, but more importantly (and detrimentally), I do eat lots of junk and stuff that is just not so good for me. (By the way, don't let anyone tell you that you have to worry about not getting enough protein if you don't eat animals. I only eat fish or seafood every perhaps 7-10 days, and yet my protein levels are on the high side. I do eat yogurt, so I get some protein there. And I eat beans, quinoa, nuts, and other protein sources.)

This means I'm always eager for a cookbook that helps me focus on eating healthy vegetarian food that also tastes good, and is quick and easy to make. So when I saw this cookbook offered up vegan-friendly meals that even meat-lovers would love, I had to give it a gander.

The author offers an introduction that explains why you would want to eat vegan (e.g. the health benefits, the environmental benefits, the ethical benefits, etc.), and then starts right in with the recipes.

First come the breakfasts, full of granolas and porridges and smoothies. Next up is snacks and sandwiches, with recipes like Mango Salsa and BLT Tartines. Then comes soups with little tasties like Rich Dark Onion Soup with Cashew Cream and Herbed Croutons, and Black-Eyed Pea and Red Pepper Soup. Then it is family-style salads like Harvest Kale Salad with Sweet Mustard Tempeh and Saffron-Orange Tahini Dressing and Mixed Oak and Green Leaf Salad with Sesame-Hiziki Croquettes, Garbanzo Beans, and Ginger-Tahini Dressing. Next you can set the table with simple meals like One-Pot Vegetables and Tofu with Sesame Rice and Lasagna Rolls with Tofu Ricotta and Everyday Tomato Sauce. Add on some hearty grains and vegetables like Barley Risotto with Spring Peas, Aspragus, and Leeks and Spicy Kimpira. And round it all out with desserts like Summer Blueberry Crumble and Peaches and Nectarines with Sweet Almond-Cashew Cream.

There is a source guide at the end of the book that lists "Natural Foods Companies", "Kitchen Tools and Small Wares", "Education", and "Organizations and Initiatives", and then a handy metric conversion chart.

The book has some beautiful photography, but not nearly as many photographs as I would have preferred. The chapters are interspersed with brief articles introducing things like superfoods or kitchen tips and informative bits about cooking techniques or equipment.

The author also touches on more focused practices, such as macrobiotics, and offers up sources for obtaining more information.

I decided to try making guacamole for the first time, utilizing a recipe from the cookbook.

Mash one-half of the diced avocados in a large bowl. Gently stir the mashed avocados and the remaining diced avocados into the tomato mixture, keeping the diced avocados intact. Season the guacamole to taste with more salt, if desired.

It was pretty darn good! It's definitely a keeper!

My final word: This cookbook is beautiful, and it is a great concept. My biggest complaint would probably be that it doesn't have as many really simple weekday meals as I'd like, and sometimes calls for less common ingredients. But it is great for the vegetarian/vegan who is looking to get a little more ambitious with their food prep.

I received a copy of this book to review through Netgalley, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

A haunting story of love and survival that introduces an unforgettable literary heroine

Ladydi
Garcia Martínez is fierce, funny and smart. She was born into a world
where being a girl is a dangerous thing. In the mountains of Guerrero,
Mexico, women must fend for themselves, as their men have left to seek
opportunities elsewhere. Here in the shadow of the drug war, bodies turn
up on the outskirts of the village to be taken back to the earth by
scorpions and snakes. School is held sporadically, when a volunteer can
be coerced away from the big city for a semester. In Guerrero the drug
lords are kings, and mothers disguise their daughters as sons, or when
that fails they “make them ugly” – cropping their hair, blackening their
teeth- anything to protect them from the rapacious grasp of the
cartels. And when the black SUVs roll through town, Ladydi and her
friends burrow into holes in their backyards like animals, tucked safely
out of sight.

While her mother waits in vain for her husband’s
return, Ladydi and her friends dream of a future that holds more promise
than mere survival, finding humor, solidarity and fun in the face of so
much tragedy. When Ladydi is offered work as a nanny for a wealthy
family in Acapulco, she seizes the chance, and finds her first taste of
love with a young caretaker there. But when a local murder tied to the
cartel implicates a friend, Ladydi’s future takes a dark turn. Despite
the odds against her, this spirited heroine’s resilience and resolve
bring hope to otherwise heartbreaking conditions.

An
illuminating and affecting portrait of women in rural Mexico, and a
stunning exploration of the hidden consequences of an unjust war,
PRAYERS FOR THE STOLEN is an unforgettable story of friendship, family,
and determination.

Jennifer Clement studied English
Literature and Anthropology at New York University and also studied
French literature in Paris, France. She has an MFA from the University
of Southern Maine.

Clement is the author of the cult classic
memoir Widow Basquiat (on the painter Jean Michel Basquiat) and two
novels: A True Story Based on Lies, which was a finalist in the Orange
Prize for Fiction, and The Poison That Fascinates.She is also the
author of several books of poetry: The Next Stranger (with an
introduction by W.S. Merwin); Newton's Sailor; Lady of the Broom and
Jennifer Clement: New and Selected Poems. Her prize-winning story A
Salamander-Child is published as an art book with work by the Mexican
painter Gustavo Monroy.

Jennifer Clement was awarded the National
Endowment of the Arts (NEA) Fellowship for Literature 2012. She is also
the recipient of the UK's Canongate Prize. In 2007, she received a
MacDowell Fellowship and the MacDowell Colony named her the Robert and
Stephanie Olmsted Fellow for 2007-08. Clement is a member of Mexico's
prestigious "Sistema Nacional de Creadores."

Ladydi lives in a small mountain village in Mexico. The men have all left for work in the US, their families abandoned and left behind. Drug traffickers rule here, and young girls are in constant danger of being stolen for the slave trade. Because of this, mothers try to “make their daughters ugly” any way they can, to make them less desirable to the kidnappers. Ladydi was named thus by her mother in honor not of Lady Di the woman, but of the shame and sorrow Di bore by her husband’s infidelity-- something that Ladydi’s mother understands.

Her mother is quite the character, being a vengeful, alcoholic kleptomaniac. She swears if she ever sees Ladydi’s father again, she will kill him dead!

Then there are Ladydi’s friends-- the other girls from the village: her harelip best friend Maria, beautiful Paula, and Estefani.

I loved Maria. Out of everyone in that godforsaken-godforgotten-hottest-hell-on-earth place, as my mother liked to call our mountain, she was the kindest person of all. She would walk around a big red fire ant before she'd step on one.

They live their lives on alert: on alert for kidnappers, stinging scorpions and ants and venomous snakes, evading helicopters dropping the herbicide Paraquat, which can cause permanent damage when it hits living flesh rather than poppy fields. There is always a sense of urgency to their lives conflicting with the slow, heated, languid pace of Mexican life.

Life on the mountain is hard. There is never enough of anything, except heat and humidity, ants and scorpions.

Ever since I was a child my mother had told me to say a prayer for some thing. We always did. I had prayed for clouds and pajamas. I had prayed for light bulbs and bees.

Don't ever pray for love or health, Mother said. Or money. If God hears what you really want, He will not give it to you. Guaranteed.

The only outsiders to ever come to the community are the teachers, volunteers who are required to serve a year in community service. They come with little understanding of mountain life, and are received with resentment by the likes of Ladydi's mother.

After a while we learned not to get too attached to these people who, as my mother said, come and go like salespeople with nothing to sell except the words you must.

I don't like people who come from far-away, she said. They have no idea of who we are, telling us you must do this and you must do that and you must do this and you must do that. Do I go to the city and tell them the place stinks and ask them, Hey, where's the grass and since when is the sky yellow?

He said, How can you all live like this, in a world without any men? How?

My mother took in a breath. It seemed that even the ants on the ground stopped moving. Jose Rosa's question stood in the hot wet air, as if spoken words could be suspended. I could reach out and touch the letters H and O and W.

They live in a world of women where women don't matter.

A missing woman is just another leaf that goes down the gutter in a rainstorm, she said.

My final word: This book is really hard to review. On the one side, I liked the easy-to-read style, the lovely little metaphors thrown in here and there. I liked most of the characters, particularly Ladydi. Some characters like Mike seemed almost pointless, shallow and one-dimensional, created solely for a single moment. Some events preposterous or improbable. After I finished the book, I found myself unable to discern my feelings. I think I liked it, but then I kind of questioned at moments while reading it "What is the point?" Effective writing, likable characters, a tragically charming story. Overall I liked this story, but I just fear that it will be forgotten all-too-soon.

Disclosure:I received a copy of this book to review through Blogging for Books, in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not financially compensated in any way, and the opinions expressed are my own and based on my observations while reading this novel.

Friday, February 6, 2015

Here are some books that have recently hit my radar and set off my alarm bells...

The Nutmeg of Consolation by Patrick O'Brian

Shipwrecked on a remote
island in the Dutch East Indies, Captain Aubrey, surgeon and secret
intelligence agent Stephen Maturin, and the crew of the Dianefashion a schooner from the wreck. A vicious attack by Malay pirates is
repulsed, but the makeshift vessel burns, and they are truly marooned.
Their escape from this predicament is one that only the whimsy and
ingenuity of Patrick O'Brian—or Stephen Maturin—could devise.

In command now of a new ship, the Nutmeg,
Aubrey pursues his interrupted mission. The dreadful penal colony in
New South Wales, harrowingly described, is the backdrop to a diplomatic
crisis provoked by Maturin's Irish temper, and to a near-fatal encounter
with the wildlife of the Australian outback.

The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac by Sharma ShieldsA dark,
fantastical, multi-generational tale about a family whose patriarch is
consumed by the hunt for the mythical, elusive sasquatch he encountered
in his youth

Eli Roebuck was nine years old when his
mother walked off into the woods with "Mr. Krantz," a large, strange,
hairy man who may or may not be a sasquatch. What Eli knows for certain
is that his mother went willingly, leaving her only son behind. For the
rest of his life, Eli is obsessed with the hunt for the bizarre creature
his mother chose over him, and we watch it affect every relationship he
has in his long life--with his father, with both of his wives, his
children, grandchildren, and colleagues. We follow all of the Roebuck
family members, witnessing through each of them the painful, isolating
effects of Eli's maniacal hunt, and find that each Roebuck is battling a
monster of his or her own, sometimes literally. The magical world
Shields has created is one of unicorns and lake monsters, ghosts and
reincarnations, tricksters and hexes. At times charming, as when young
Eli meets the eccentric, extraordinary Mr. Krantz, and downright
horrifying at others, The Sasquatch Hunter's Almanac is boldly
imaginative throughout, and proves to be a devastatingly real portrait
of the demons that we as human beings all face.

From the acclaimed author
of The Troop—which Stephen King raved “scared the hell out of me and I
couldn’t put it down.…old-school horror at its best”—comes this utterly
terrifying novel where The Abyss meets The Shining.

A strange
plague called the ’Gets is decimating humanity on a global scale. It
causes people to forget—small things at first, like where they left
their keys…then the not-so-small things like how to drive, or the
letters of the alphabet. Then their bodies forget how to function
involuntarily…and there is no cure. But now, far below the surface of
the Pacific Ocean, deep in the Marianas Trench, an heretofore unknown
substance hailed as “ambrosia” has been discovered—a universal healer,
from initial reports. It may just be the key to a universal cure. In
order to study this phenomenon, a special research lab, the Trieste, has
been built eight miles under the sea’s surface. But now the station is
incommunicado, and it’s up to a brave few to descend through the
lightless fathoms in hopes of unraveling the mysteries lurking at those
crushing depths…and perhaps to encounter an evil blacker than anything
one could possibly imagine.

Of Things Gone Astray by Janna MatthewsonMrs Featherby had been having pleasant dreams until she woke to discover the front of her house had vanished overnight …

On
a seemingly normal morning in London, a group of people all lose
something dear to them, something dear but peculiar: the front of their
house, their piano keys, their sense of direction, their place of work.

Meanwhile,
Jake, a young boy whose father brings him to London following his
mother’s sudden death in an earthquake, finds himself strangely
attracted to other people’s lost things. But little does he realise that
his most valuable possession, his relationship with his dad, is
slipping away from him.

Of Things Gone Astray is a magical fable about modern life and values. Perfect for fans of Andrew Kaufman and Cecelia Ahern.

The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou BerneyWith the
compelling narrative tension and psychological complexity of the works
of Laura Lippman, Dennis Lehane, Kate Atkinson, and Michael Connelly,
Edgar Award-nominee Lou Berney’s The Long and Faraway Gone is a smart,
fiercely compassionate crime story that explores the mysteries of memory
and the impact of violence on survivors—and the lengths they will go to
find the painful truth of the events that scarred their lives

In
the summer of 1986, two tragedies rocked Oklahoma City. Six
movie-theater employees were killed in an armed robbery, while one
inexplicably survived. Then, a teenage girl vanished from the annual
State Fair. Neither crime was ever solved.

Twenty-five years
later, the reverberations of those unsolved cases quietly echo through
survivors’ lives. A private investigator in Vegas, Wyatt’s latest
inquiry takes him back to a past he’s tried to escape—and drags him
deeper into the harrowing mystery of the movie house robbery that left
six of his friends dead.

Like Wyatt, Julianna struggles with the
past—with the day her beautiful older sister Genevieve disappeared.
When Julianna discovers that one of the original suspects has
resurfaced, she’ll stop at nothing to find answers.

As fate
brings these damaged souls together, their obsessive quests spark sexual
currents neither can resist. But will their shared passion and
obsession heal them, or push them closer to the edge? Even if they find
the truth, will it help them understand what happened, that long and
faraway gone summer? Will it set them free—or ultimately destroy them?